There's Too Many Movies About Musicians
At least I think
Welcome back to another edition of Can’t Get Much Higher, a newsletter exclusively devoted to the intersection of music and data. I hope your last week was filled with loads of great songs. In the past, we have connected music to television, but movies have largely remained absent from this newsletter. Today, we will rectify that.
The Music Biopic Boom
By Chris Dalla Riva
As I sat down to watch the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown a few months ago, I began leafing through other music biopics in my mind. Walk the Line. Love & Mercy. La Bamba. Ray. Coal Miner’s Daughter. Music biopics can be super cheesy, but I’m a sucker to have the lives of my musical heroes dramatized on the silver screen.
As I was mulling over the list, I was struck by something. I felt like there have been a ton of music biopics in the last few years. There was an Elvis Presley biopic (2022). There was a Bob Marley biopic (2024). There was a Whitney Houston biopic (2022). There as an Amy Winehouse biopic (2024). When I got out of the Dylan movie, I wanted to check to see if there were really a flood of biopics or I was imagining it.
When I eventually had some free time, I hit up my friend
to ask about movie data. Parris runs , a newsletter focused on culture and data. Much of his coverage is focused on movies. I figured he’d have the movie data goods. And he did. He pointed me to IMDb, the internet movie database with over 15 million movies and television shows. By excluding documentaries and including films tagged with “music” and “biography” that had at least one review, I could get an answer to my question.
Lo and behold, it looked like my hunch was correct. Between 1990 and 1994, IMDb had evidence of 16 music biopics. Between 2020 and 2024, there were 68, a 325% increase. Not only that, but from the 1990s onward that growth had been steady. There really were more biopics. Right? There’s a bit more to the story.
If you look at the above graph, you’ll notice that before the recent growth in music biopics, there was an early period of growth that peaked in the 1950s. This peak was nowhere near the peak from 2020 to 2024, but there are many more movies released these days. It’s possible that the growth in music biopics is really just a function of the growth in movies generally rather than more interest in the genre. Again, we can check.
Rather than looking at the total music biopics released in 5-year increments, we can look at the percentage of all movies which are music biopics. Again, we are limiting to movies that have at least one review on IMDb. What this shows us is that on a relative basis, the greatest interest in the music biopic was actually in the early-1950s. From 1950 to 1954, 0.61% of all films released were music biopics. From 2020 to 2024, only 0.15% were.
But why was the interest in music biopics so great back then? At the time, musicals were one of the most dominant cultural objects. In fact, 7.2% of all movies released between 1945 and 1954 were musicals. The music biopic was not only a close cousin of the movie musical, but some biopics were musicals themselves. And there were a lot of them.
Three Little Words (1950) paired Fred Astaire and Red Skelton as the Tin Pan Alley songwriting duo Kalmar and Ruby. The Great Caruso (1951) saw Mario Lanza portray a fictionalized version of the operatic tenor Enrico Caruso. Stars and Stripes Forever (1952) captured the life of composer and band leader John Philip Sousa. The I Don't Care Girl (1953) told the story of “the girl who made vaudeville famous,” Eva Tanguay. The Glenn Miller Story (1954) saw Jimmy Stewart take on the role of the famed trombonist.
While we have seen a bunch of music biopics come to theaters of recent, the real heyday for the genre was the decade after WWII, when moviegoers were infatuated with musicals and music stories.
Why Do People Make Music Biopics These Days?
While there have been a steady number of music biopics on a relative basis over the last few decades, I think it’s worth exploring the incentives behind making these movies. As noted, the growth of the genre in the 1940s and 1950s was related to the proliferation of musicals. That doesn’t capture the genre now. Only 0.9% of movies in the last decade have been musicals. Again, 7.2% fell into that genre between 1945 and 1954. The key to understanding the more recent music biopics is licensing.
When someone sets to make a music biopic, they need to license the compositions and recordings for the big screen. This can result a sizable payout for whoever owns the copyrights associated with those two things. Additionally, if the movie is a hit, it will usually lead to increased interest in the musician, often resulting in record sales and streaming growth. According to Billboard, for example, Bob Dylan’s streams increased over 150% after the release of A Complete Unknown.
Pair this dynamic with the fact that many catalogs have been sold to labels and investment firms over the last few years. Whitney Houston’s catalog was sold. Bob Dylan’s catalog was sold. Bruce Springsteen’s catalog was sold. Neil Diamond’s catalog was sold. Many of these sales were for hundreds of millions of dollars. If you’ve just dropped that much money on intellectual property, you best be trying to make sure that intellectual property generates a return. A music biopic is one way to make that happen.
Next time you head to the cinema to see the latest music biopic or throw one on your TV, take a look to see if that artist’s catalog was sold near the release of the film. There’s probably a greedy investor happy about your viewing decision.
A New One
"PSILOCYBIN & DAISIES" by Jessie Reyez
2025 - Indie Rock
On her new album PAID IN MEMORIES, Jessie Reyez plays with genre. Some songs are backed up by R&B rhythms. Others are laced with hip-hop flows. On “PSILOCYBIN & DAISIES,” Reyez dives into the world of indie rock. And I don’t use that term to describe her career situation. She is most surely not an independent artist. But the wash of guitars and propulsive drum kit make it feel like you’re in a movie montage backed by some nameless guitar band from 2004.
An Old One
"What Did You Learn in School Today?" by Pete Seeger
1963 - Folk
Though written by singer-songwriter Tom Paxton, I kept thinking of Pete Seeger’s rendition of the song “What Did You Learn in School Today?” while I was watching A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic. Of course, Seeger only has a supporting role in the film. But once you hear “What Did You Learn in School Today?”, it’s hard not to think of it anytime you see Seeger’s face. The lyrics cut as deep as they did when they were first sung six decades ago.
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This is interesting as a follow up: "While men-centered biopics privilege beginnings, women-centered biopics tend to narrate the tragic end of their subjects."
https://www.publicbooks.org/perfect-recordings-of-lost-voices/
No matter the subject matter, always follow the $$. I worked on one of the biggest money makers. It was pure fiction sold as reality. People never question this possibility.